Job 15:20

The wicked man travaileth with pain all [his] days,.... Either to commit iniquity, which he is at great pains to do, and even to weariness; and, agreeably to the metaphor used, he conceives it in his

The wicked man travaileth with pain all his days, and the number of years is hidden to the oppressor. The wicked man travaileth with pain all his days, and the number of years is hidden to the oppressor.

Travaileth with pain, i.e. lives a life of care, and fear, and grief, by reason of God’ s wrath, and the torments of his own mind, and his manifold and dreadful outward calamities. The number of his years is hidden, i.e. he knows not how short the time of his tyranny and life is, and therefore lives in continual fear of losing them. The number of a good man’ s years are also hid from him as well as they are from the wicked men; but to those this is a great torment and mischief; whereas it is not so to him. Or, and a few years (Heb. a number of years, put by a common hypallage for years of number; as few years are called, , because they are soon numbered; as men of number, is put for a few men, 33:6) are laid or treasured up, i.e. are allotted to him by God’ s secret counsel; for God cuts off such men in the midst of their days. ; whereas long life is promised, and commonly given, to righteous men. To the oppressor, i.e. to the wicked man; but he names this one sort of them, the oppressors, partly, because he supposed Job to be guilty of this sin, ; partly, in opposition to what Job had affirmed of the safety and happiness of such persons, ; and partly, because such are most apt to expect and promise to themselves a longer and happier life than other men, because of their singular preservatives and advantages of life above other men.

Job 15:20 The wicked man travaileth with pain all [his] days, and the number of years is hidden to the oppressor.Ver. 20. The wicked man travaileth with pain all his days] He tormenteth himself, or thrusteth himself through (so some read it), 1 Timothy 6:10. He takes no more rest than one upon a rack; he hath his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail, Jeremiah 30:6; he smiteth upon his thigh; sicut mulierculae in puerperio facere solent, saith Luther in his marginal note on Jeremiah 31:19. And if he would do so for his sin, as he doth for his misery, pia esset illa tristitia, et, si disci potest, beata miseria, as Austin hath it (Aug. Epist. 545), his grief would be godly, and his misery a blessing, God would pity him, as he did his moan making Ephraim, and earnestly remember him still, Job 15:23. But, alas, that wicked are strong, the hypocrite in heart, as he heaps up wrath, so he crieth not when God bindeth him, Job 36:16. Or if he do cry, it is peril, and not peccavi, I am undone, and not, I have done amiss. Hence God many times turneth loose upon him those three vultures, care, fear, and grief, to feed upon his heart. It is seldom seen that God alloweth unto the greatest darlings of the world a perfect contentment. In the very pursuit of these outward vanities is much anguish, many grievances, fears, jealousies, disgraces, interruptions, discontentments. In the unsanctified enjoyment of them, something the wicked shall have to complain of, that shall give an unsavoury verdue to their sweetest morsels, and make their very felicity miserable; witness Ahab, Haman, &c. But then followeth the sting of conscience, that maketh a Cain, a Pashur, a Richard III, to be a terror to himself. And with this pain some wicked men travail all their days here, but hereafter it shall infallibly and inexpressibly torment the souls of them all, through all eternity. And this, with the following illustrations, is that oracle or divine sentence which Eliphaz received from those famous men above mentioned, and which he not obscurely applieth and wresteth against Job, whom herehence he would prove a wicked man by his own confessions, Job 3:25-26; Job 7:13-14, compared with Leviticus 26:36 Deuteronomy 28:65, for that which Eliphaz had heard from his ancestors was but the same law, for substance, that was afterwards written by Moses. And the number of years is hidden to the oppressor] Heb. To the terrible tyrant, who, as he hath not a more cruel executioner than his own conscience, so not a more sensible displeasure than to know that he is mortal, and yet to be ignorant when his tyranny must end. The number of the years of his tyranny is uncertain, saith the Vulgate translation. And from this uncertainty, which he knoweth not how to remedy (though he run to light a candle at the devil sometimes, viz.

(20) Travaileth with pain.—This and the following verses contain the result of this experience. Here, again, we have a highly-coloured and poetical description of the oppressor, true to the character of the speaker in Job 4:12, &c. We should read Job 15:20 : The wicked man travaileth with pain all his days, even the number of years that are laid up for the oppressor. It is not an independent statement, as in the Authorised Version. A sound of terror is for ever in his ears lest the spoiler should come upon him in his prosperity—he always seems to dread his war-swoop. And this condition of darkness within, which contrasts so painfully with his outward prosperity, he sees no escape from; he is over in fear of a sword hanging over him, like Damocles.

Verse 20. The wicked man travaileth with pain] This is a most forcible truth: a life of sin is a life of misery; and he that WILL sin MUST suffer. One of the Targums gives it a strange turn: - "All the days of the ungodly Esau, he was expected to repent, but he did not repent; and the number of years was hidden from the sturdy Ishmael." The sense of the original, מתחולל mithcholel, is he torments himself: he is a true heautontimoreumenos, or self-tormentor; and he alone is author of his own sufferings, and of his own ruin.

17–35. Eliphaz instructs Job regarding the troubled conscience And the Disastrous Fate of the Wicked Man Having sufficiently rebuked Job’s presumption and irreverence Eliphaz proceeds to take up his principles, which “did away with the fear of God,” Job 15:4. They are such principles as Job gave forth ch. Job 9:22 seq., Job 12:6. The passage has two parts:— First, Job 15:17-19, a brief preface, in which Eliphaz states that his doctrine is that of the wise of all times among the pure-blooded races of men, who have never been contaminated by mixture with foreign tribes, and whose traditions are uncorrupted. Second, Job 15:20-35, the doctrine regarding the wicked man itself, in which there are three points: (1) the troubled conscience and presentiments of coming evil that continually haunt the evil man, Job 15:20-24; (2) the cause of this, his defiance of God and sensual life, Job 15:25-28; and (3) finally, a picture of his punishment and disastrous end, Job 15:29-35.

Travaileth with pain - That is, his sorrows are like the pains of parturition. Eliphaz means to say that he is a constant sufferer. All his days - It seems difficult to see how they could have ever formed this universal maxim.

20. Is hidden — Rather, That are reserved, for the oppressor. His life is prolonged, but with the intention of punishment.